Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Wednesday May 02, 2012 @12:38PM
from the thus-began-the-hexapod-wars dept.

New submitter schlesingerj writes in with news about a six legged robot "The Artisans Asylum hackerspace in Somerville, MA is building a monster rideable hexapod named 'Stompy', with fully articulated legs (18 hydraulics actuators in total), powered by a humongous propane forklift engine. This is being built as a class, lead by a team of expert roboticists with an impressive background, including DEKA, Boston Dynamics and Barret Technologies and is expected to be finished by the end of the summer. I for one welcome our new robot overlords."

The Artisans Asylum hackerspace in Somerville, MA is building a monster rideable hexapod named 'Stompy', with fully articulated legs (18 hydraulics actuators in total), powered by a humongous propane forklift engine.

Did anyone else read this and think they were building a hexapod capable of carrying monsters?

I never have been to this hackerspace. I found out about it at Arisia 2011, when I saw a previous boss of mine sitting at a table in Dealer's Room. We chatted for a bit, and it turns out, he was manning the Artists Asylum table. They look really fucking cool. They have a 3d printer (soon I will too:) ), CNC machine etc.... and they offer classes on how to use the tools and do stuff with it. When I was looking, I believe they also had other classess on other tools and techniques.

I want to check them out one day, maybe actually be social, but, I tend to have my own tools and like to work at my house on my projects.

First, there's Mondo Spider [eatart.org]. The same guys are also working on Titanoboa [eatart.org], which is a ridable robot snake.

And both of those are electric. No propane forklift engines, which makes them much quieter.

or, more importantly, Mondo Spider exists. So far "Stompy" is just a computer rendering. Article is kind of pointless, what is the point of telling everyone every little project you plan on working on? They're not even half way done, nothing exists at all.

I can't help but notice they've blown through most of their budget and still have difficult technical questions to answer.
They've got no programming, no UI, and their timeline is growing short.

I have the funding, I have the software, I have the control theory, I have a UI, I even have safety protocols and notes about how to assemble the creature. So why haven't I finished mine already? I need engineering help to get the right hydraulic equipment. It's not the kind of thing I can afford to build twice.

Also I have a working scale model and I'm looking to build another interim model ~6' with car parts. I tried talking to CAT about sourcing the booms & sticks from their backhoes and they wouldn't speak to me unless I had a patent, a lawyer, and who knows what else.